Artists give George R. Brown Convention Center local...

1of15Construction work continues on an atrium that will hold new artworks commissioned for the George R. Brown Convention Center.Photo: James Nielsen, Staff

2of15Artist Ben Woitena poses for a portrait in front of his art piece, "The Brown is Green," one of ten artworks commissioned for the George R. Brown Convention Center July 27, 2016, in Houston. ( James Nielsen / Houston Chronicle )Photo: James Nielsen, Staff

3of15Artist Ben Woitena poses for a portrait in front of his new work "The Brown is Green," one of ten commissions for the George R. Brown Convention Center July 27, 2016, in Houston. ( James Nielsen / Houston Chronicle )Photo: James Nielsen, Staff

4of15Ben Woitena's art installation "The Brown is Green," in the north lobby of the George R. Brown Convention Center, features three panels with images of Houston flora and fauna.Photo: James Nielsen, Staff

5of15Artist Ben Woitena finishes the installation of his art piece, "The Brown is Green." which is part of new artworks commissioned for the George R. Brown Convention Center July 27, 2016, in Houston. ( James Nielsen / Houston Chronicle )Photo: James Nielsen, Staff

6of15Construction crews at work in one of three multi-story atriums that will soon give the George R. Brown Convention Center a dramatic entry overlooking Discovery Green.Photo: James Nielsen, Staff

8of15Gonzo247 will create "Lifting Off,"Â one of ten new artworks commissioned for the George R. Brown Convention Center by Houston First.Photo: Gonzo247

9of15Britt Thomas is creating "Metallographic Cosmos," a mural for the restaurant wall in the George R. Brown Convention Center. Her piece is made usingÂ Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) technology,Â zooming in on particles that looke planetary but may be no larger than the tip of a pen.Photo: Britt Thomas

10of15Photo: Joe Aker and Tami Merrick are creatingÂ Skype Scape for the George R. Brown Convention Center. This work will celebrate urban Houston's economic, commercial and cultural diversity. The three-dimensional, geometric and photographic wall-mount

11of15The collective RE:site Studio (Shane Allbritton and Norman Lee) and Michael Gonzalez) are creating "Tying Time," a multi-media work about Houston's railroad and port history, for the garage elevator lobby of the new Partnership Tower that leads to the George R. Brown Convention Center.Photo: Re:site Studio

12of15The proposal for Page Piland's "Houston's Own Tall Forest," an assemblageÂ inset with Houston area indigenous woods that are shaped, cut and painted to reflect silhouettes of the city's iconic tall buildings and the nearby San Jacinto Monument.Photo: Page Piland

13of15Lorena Morales' "Flight Plan" is one of ten new artworks commissioned for the George R. Brown Convention Center by Houston First. It is inspired by the flight patterns of Â birds.Photo: Lorena Morales

14of15One of three photographs from Pablo Gimenez-Zapiola's series "Night Trees," which will hang above phone charging stations at the George R. Brown Convention Center.Photo: Pablo Gimenez-Zapiola

15of15Reginald Adams made his mural "Power of the Port," in 2004. One of the artists selected to make new works for the George R. Brown Convention Center, he is planning a new mural to be called "Creatia."Photo: Reginald Adams

Heavy rain turned the construction on Avenida de las Americas into a mud pit Thursday, but beautiful views across Discovery Green unfolded from above, through the dramatic glass walls that are giving the George R. Brown Convention Center a friendlier face.

Views inside are improving, too.

While crews shimmied up scaffolding in the atriums, veteran artist Ben Woitena stood atop a small cherry-picker at the center's north end, doing final touch-ups on his three-panel installation, "The Brown is Green."

Woitena's piece is one of ten new artworks that Houston First, the center's operator, has commissioned to make the walls of the renovated lobbies feel more human and give them a stronger sense of place.

"So when you walk into the George R. Brown, you don't just feel that you're anywhere," said Christine West, Houston First's cultural programs manager. "We want to reflect Houston's culture."

The art program is part of a Houston First initiative to create a dining and entertainment hub - Avenida Houston - that connects the center's lobbies with a new promenade along the Avenida de las Americas and Discovery Green Park.

Last week Houston First announced eight new restaurants that will open this winter at Avenida Houston. Chef Hugo Ortega's new concept, Xochi, joins five other eateries coming to the soon-to-open Marriott Marquis Hotel, where Craig Biggio's sports bar is also sure to be a big draw. Also arriving soon to the area: A new take on Grotto, by Tilman Fertitta; plus Bud's Pitmaster BBQ, Kulture and McAlister's Deli.

But first, it's a focus on the art.

West, who previously directed Lawndale Art Center, sent out an open call for art proposals that interpreted themes such as space and technology, native flora and fauna, reuse and recycling, cultural diversity and the city's entrepreneurial history.

"I wanted to leave the artists the freedom to express themselves as they would, with the type of practice that they have," she said. "But ... it is a public space, and we are trying to promote Houston through our convention center, so we had to rein it in a tiny bit."

She awarded the commissions, which total $80,500, with help from a committee that included Texas Southern University's Alvia Wardlaw, Houston Arts Alliance's Sara Kellner and others.

Five of the works are murals fabricated in a variety of media. Several will entertain people by offering unusual ways to "experience" views of Houston. For instance, Shane Albritton's "Earth and Skyline" will combine multiple images of Houston environments from multiple days as a single gesture. Joe Aker and Tami Merrick's "Skype Scape" is a take on a three-dimensional lenticular photograph, with a series of images that floats within a contrasting color-field background

Smaller works by Reginald Adams, Pablo Gimenez-Zapiola, Lorena Morales and Page Piland will hang in four phone-charging nooks.

Woitena, who is best-known for beefy, abstract sculptures, has delivered a surprise: His three panels feature cut-out black and white paintings of a great horned owl, a hummingbird, a monarch butterfly and flowers.

He has drawn and painted since he was a student at the University of Texas-Austin in the early 1960s, he said. "You never lose it. It's like riding a bicycle."

His paintings, made on masonite, are screwed to forest-green backgrounds framed in cream, with black corners, so each panel mimics a photograph in a vintage album. Visitors are already posing there to take selfies.

West said the other artworks should be complete by mid-October, and there's more to come. "I want to fill up the whole GRB," she said.

Two unrelated, monumental civic artworks are also under construction: Ed Wilson's "Soaring in the Clouds" will hang in the central atrium, and the kinetic "Wings Over Water" by Joe O'Connell & Creative Machines will hover above the new Fountain of the Americas outside.

Installation begins in September on Wilson's piece, a commission that stirred intense controversy when it was awarded in 2014. O'Connell's work will be installed in November and activated in December when the fountain is complete.

Molly Glentzer, a staff arts critic since 1998, writes mostly about dance and visual arts but can go anywhere a good story leads. Through covering public art in parks, she developed a beat focused on Houston's emergence as one of the nation's leading "green renaissance" cities.

During about 30 years as a journalist Molly has also written for periodicals, including Texas Monthly, Saveur, Food & Wine, Dance Magazine and Dance International. She collaborated with her husband, photographer Don Glentzer, to create "Pink Ladies & Crimson Gents: Portraits and Legends of 50 Roses" (2008, Clarkson Potter), a book about the human culture behind rose horticulture. This explains the occasional gardening story byline and her broken fingernails.

A Texas native, Molly grew up in Houston and has lived not too far away in the bucolic town of Brenham since 2012.